Top 3D printers can now produce outputs at a low cost, so I'm going to give one a try! ~Purchase Arc~ - [New Series] Machinery Tomoko Creates Stuff on Her Own!

Hello. I'm Machinery Tomoko, Singularity's cyborg.

I'm Sakamoto from pixiv. This cyborg threatened me and ordered me to accompany her for this interview. I decided to put on a three-dimensional face to match the content of Tomoko's project, but I'm a human.

I'm Osozawa from SK Honpo. Thank you for wanting to learn more about the 3D printers that our company sells.

I had the impression that in order to get some good quality rapid prototyping, which is suitable for creating figures and other objects, I will have to spend about 500,000 JPY despite the fact there are more, cheaper 3D printers nowadays. But then I heard that the Phrozen Shuffle that your company sells is able to produce fairly sleek objects.

Yes. There are several types of 3D printers and many of the small and affordable printers for individuals are those of the FDM (fused filament fabrication) type. A filament is a plastic that has been stretched to a threadlike state. An FDM type printer works by heating up the filaments until they melt and build up an object. The printer is known for its low cost since it's not difficult to set up and the materials can be found easily.

Wow! The details of the rapid prototype's tower are much clearer.

You're right! The FDM type's tower has threads of melted filaments here and there. And the layers are pretty uneven...

On the contrary, the rapid prototype printer's tower is an amazing structure of neatly packed resin.

I've actually made my own arm prayer wheel with 3D data before. I made it using DMM.make, which is a 3D printing service that DMM has. This is it...

Most action figures in the markets include parts that are of the same size as this wheel and I spent about 5,000 JPY to create this.

I'd say this is a Form2 product. What do you think?

What is a "Form2"?

It'd be nice to have a Form2 printer, but the price is 500,000 JPY. That's why I used to think rapid prototype 3D printers were out of my reach.

Yes, I could rely on printing services and when I consider all the things that must have been involved to print this piece, I don't think 5,000 JPY per piece is expensive. But because a printing service can't just create a piece of this size and sell it for 5,000 JPY per piece in a large quantity, I thought I would get my own 3D printer. That's when I heard about the Phrozen Shuffle and the low cost impressed me.

Well, what can I say. This printer is awesome. I think I'm going to buy it.

First and foremost, you need data before you can print using a 3D printer, right? But I still don't quite understand how to create the data.

Simply put, there are two types of digital modeling software that you can choose before using a 3D printer, namely the 3D CAD type and the sculpting type.

3D CAD entails designing and drafting.

Basically, you can use the software by drawing lines and pushing the object to create volume. 3D CAD is suitable for creating data that contain straight and exact lines.

The other software type is sculpting, which has been getting more popular among the people who create figures in recent years.

I think a software called Blender was popular a while ago thanks to VRChat. Can we make data with that software?

Basically, you're all set as long as you have saved the data for 3D printing as a .stl file. A file in this format is a group of small 3D triangular data and you can make this file with most 3D modeling software.

TinkerCAD is another software and it's easy to operate because you can use it as if you're piling up building blocks. You can't make complicated shapes like a female character with the software, but it does the job as long as you keep your objects simple.

You can choose not to create your own data too because there are people who distribute or sell data for 3D printing on the Internet. You can also search for items that you want on the Internet and create your own data at home, which is just as fun. Our company has some recommended websites that are useful to find 3D data, so take a look.

The printer has arrived!!!